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The Rational Response Squad is a group of atheist activists who impact society by changing the way we view god belief. This site is a haven for those who are pushing back against the norm, and a place for believers of gods to have their beliefs exposed as false should they want to try their hand at confronting us.

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Meh. The simple fact is, that as yet, no model accurately predicts the formation of the entire solar system. But the closest hypothesis so far are concerned with Venus, not Mercury. Nothing about Mercury defies current understanding.
Venus, on the other hand, may be the youngest planet. It does defy understanding, and the most current hypothesis involve a massive collision that resulted in its existence.

This:

"For example, Mercury's density and composition don't match planetary evolution models, and its surface geology and magnetic field are too active for it to be billions of years old."

Typical creationist bullshit. First off, the model ASSUMES a young beginning and Bible based water creation and second, the creationists use misleading language:

Quote:

What is obvious (but not surprising) about the ICR article is that a quick read by the lay Christian would undoubtedly result in their receiving the impression that here again we have evidence of a young creation that secular scientists are only reluctantly admitting now that this satellite is providing direct evidence of “fresh” and “relatively young” features. Here we have an obvious example of a common strategy in YEC literature. Thomas is using the exact words from the article but does not provide his reader with the meaning of the words that a science-literate audience would understand. The words “fresh” and “relatively young” sound comforting because the usual secular story is one of a planet of great age where little has changed over billions of years. But the article quoted here is using “fresh” in a geological sense in which these processes that are “relatively young” are slumping/sinking of surfaces possibly in the last 200,000 years and probably in the past 100 million years rather than having happened a billion years or more ago. I don’t think this is what “relatively young” means in the mind of the reader of the ICR article. The amount of cosmic dust and asteroid debris on the surface is such that the a tremendous amount of time would have to pass to accumulate such material on top of prior volcanic outpourings.

In any honest inquiry somewhere along the line you are bound to make a comparison of one thing with another. Mercury's magnetic field is just one of the puzzles of Mercury (and life's 'little' mysteries). However, Its' just more 'spin' (pun very intended).

Mercury's magnetic field is due to its extremely large (per square kilometre, compared with planet size, it's got a bigger core than any other planet in the system) and molten iron core. There isn't anything special about it beyond that.

Mercury's magnetic field is due to its extremely large (per square kilometre, compared with planet size, it's got a bigger core than any other planet in the system) and molten iron core. There isn't anything special about it beyond that.

D. Russell Humphrey's asks if 'the core' had solidified in his original paper, I take it.

I doubt Mr. Humphrey's knows anything that has been discovered in the last 15 years. All these YEC types depend on ancient scientific studies to promote their idiotic ideas. Hell, he's (allegedly) a physicist. Not a geologist or even an astronomer. He's outside his field, if he even has a field.

Did you read Jean C's offer to me? He invited me on a trek to Mt. St. Helen's with a "world reknown YEC geologist?" Wish I could go, would love to get these two on video looking for evidence of a young earth. I wonder who this "world reknown geologist" is? Richard Dawkins mentioned a geologist in a soundbite about a YEC'er who got a PHD from Harvard, but still clings to YEC.

Could any of it be anything we haven't heard before?
Creationist aren't good at adding anything to science. They only resist it for as long as they can and then finally say, oh, our scripture has said that all along.

Religion Kills !!!

Numbers 31:17-18 - Now kill all the boys. And kill every woman who has slept with a man, but save for yourselves every girl who has never slept with a man.

Could any of it be anything we haven't heard before? Creationist aren't good at adding anything to science. They only resist it for as long as they can and then finally say, oh, our scripture has said that all along.

The YEC crowd already has their answer -- "Six thousand literal years ago."

While I'd point out that it was 5,778 years, plus six periods of unknown length, they aren't so good on what "six periods of unknown length" means. I'm going to go with "six periods of unknown length" adding up to around 14 billions years ...

"Obviously I'm convinced of the existence of G-d. I'm equally convinced that Atheists who've led good lives will be in Olam HaBa going "How the heck did I wind up in this place?!?" while Christians who've treated people like dirt will be in some other place asking the exact same question."

This is an article that I found on the good doctor. Not directly related to his Mercury claim, but very relevant because it establishes his scientific credibility. I particularly like this quote regarding traces of radiocarbon in diamonds:

"On October 18th, 2005, Dr. Taylor replied (with his permission to cite) that

My take on their problem is that they [RATE creationists] apparently have little or no understanding of operational details involved in AMS technology and the nature of how ion sources and AMS spectrometers work since, as far as I know, none of these people have any direct research experience in this field. They are thus not aware of the many potential sources of trace amounts of radiocarbon in the blanks and how a detector can register the presence of a few mass 14 events that are not radiocarbon.

Regards, Ervin Taylor

As far as Mercury is concerned, I held to the hypothesis that it was formed from a planetary collision early in the solar system (much like the earth/moon). A quick wiki search reveals that the latest data shows that the surface composition is not consistent with that theory. The more plausible theory is that: "A third hypothesis proposes that the solar nebula caused drag on the particles from which Mercury was accreting, which meant that lighter particles were lost from the accreting material"

This explains why Mercury is 40% core as opposed to around 18% for Earth. I'm no geologist so I can't comment on the amplitude of magnetic fields in rocks, but I would assume since the surface is constantly in a state of flux, some of that major core is bound to show up on the surface. I just wish that D. Russell Humphreys would also recognize his limitations. He has a Ph. D in physics from 1972... He doesn't come across as a high authority in geology, or particularly astrogeology.

I still think that if anyone that still believes the Earth is ~6k either has major gaps in their education or their frontal lobe.

"Don't seek these laws to understand. Only the mad can comprehend..." -- George Cosbuc